G.E. Has Discovered a New Way to Refrigerate

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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General Electric is finally turning is technological attention to something we take for granted every day, unless of course, it quits working; the kitchen refrigerator. Refrigerators started out as plain old ice boxes and progressing little once the leap to chemical coolants and compressor cycling came into use a century ago. GE now brings to you the magnetic-based cooling system.
 
h929A65DC
 
Very cool. Good for the environment and saves money, assuming it's reliable and not ridiculously expensive.
 
Best as I can tell, this material in the presence of a magnet goes to a higher temperature without really adding heat to it. Because its at a higher temp, it can lose heat to the cooling fluid. When the magnet switches off, the material has less heat energy in it and drops to a colder temperature than when it started.

Material
Starts at Temp T1,
Switch on magnet,
Material jumps to T2 (T2>T1), without heat being added
Coolant drops material back to T1 by taking away heat.
Switch off magnet
Material drops to T3 (T3<T1<T2) and
material now can absorb heat from the fridge and goes back to T1.
 
What's the efficiency like compared to a traditional compressor style refrigeration unit? Fridges are one of the biggest consumers of energy in your home, often in temperate climates the single biggest consumer. Refrigeration via compression/phase change is very inefficient, and your fridge has to stay cool 24/7/365.

A change to a low pressure liquid and magnetic induction system would do wonders for energy use. I just hope they can do it without having to physically move the magnetic coil packs, which I'm sure would be a primary mode of failure. Solid state >> mechanical actuation.
 
Was kinda hoping there wouldn't be any moving parts for zero noise and low failure rate. Still neat though.
 
Kueller said:
What's the efficiency like compared to a traditional compressor style refrigeration unit? Fridges are one of the biggest consumers of energy in your home, often in temperate climates the single biggest consumer.
Click to expand...
1. Article states 20% more efficient than compressor based refrigerators.

2. It depends on your home. The average modern $500 16-18 cu ft major brand refrigerator/freezer uses about $5 in electricity a month, less than 5% of the average monthly electricity bill in the US. Incandescent lighting and AC use much more than that.

You can get a couple of fast food value meals a year with those kinds of savings!
 
Interesting and probably will find more industrial uses within a decade, but there's also the fact that it's currently based on a rare earth element that needs to be mined and is highly toxic in ionic form.
 
as cool as this is... if the 20% efficiency bump is only going to save me (at most) 20 dollars per year in electricity, it had better not cost more than 20 dollars over the normal price of fridges.
 
Still very cool, I applaud any advances in refrigeration... it's been what... a few decades since we've been doing the exact same thing?

If this could revolutionize the world the way L.E.D. lights have, I think we would all benefit!
 
Ahh! The actual original GE article is much more informative than the gizmodo trash linked to.
http://www.gereports.com/post/75911607449/not-your-average-fridge-magnet
GE said:
The new technology is taking advantage of a century-old discovery called the magnetocaloric effect. In the 1880s, German physicist Emil Warburg observed that certain metals would heat up near magnets and cool down when taken away.
...
That goal got closer when the team’s materials scientists developed a new type of nickel-manganese alloys for magnets that could function at room temperatures. Design engineers arranged the magnets in a series of 50 cooling stages. Today they are capable of reducing temperature by 80 degrees. “We are focusing on magnetic refrigeration as a potential replacement for all the refrigeration technologies currently in use,” Benedict says.
Click to expand...

Gizmodo said:
So how does it work? Instead of using a chemical refrigerant like Freon to draw heat away from the inside of the fridge, a magnetic field agitates particles in a water-based fluid—presumably made of some highly patented mixture—that causes it drop in temperature and in turn cool a refrigerator. The engineering and physics behind how it works is of course more complicated than that, but those are cards that company is understandably holding close to its chest.
Click to expand...
 
collegeboy69us said:
as cool as this is... if the 20% efficiency bump is only going to save me (at most) 20 dollars per year in electricity, it had better not cost more than 20 dollars over the normal price of fridges.
Click to expand...

what the life of your fridge? 5 to 10 years?
5 years if its 100 bucks more you break even
if your fridge lasts you 10 years its 200 bucks more

if it cost the same you end up saving 100 to 200 over the life of the fridge
 
Hmm... 8 track, cassette, VHS, DVD and so more costly new tech. :rolleyes: In the guise of saving energy, we are all using more to energy to power every new electronic device. It's new tech jacking up the cost of a new refrigerator, like the 7 dollar low watt mercury light bulb vs. the energy consuming incandescent $1.50 light bulb. And, by the way the new light bulb burns out just as often as the old incandescent light bulb, the difference is cost and that people is were they want us... CAPTIVE to keeping them in business. FOR if what I said was false... they (the manufacturers and engineers) would definitely GO OUT OF BUSINESS if they built quality items to outlast the last invented product. :cool:
 
pxc said:
1. Article states 20% more efficient than compressor based refrigerators.

2. It depends on your home. The average modern $500 16-18 cu ft major brand refrigerator/freezer uses about $5 in electricity a month, less than 5% of the average monthly electricity bill in the US. Incandescent lighting and AC use much more than that.

You can get a couple of fast food value meals a year with those kinds of savings!
Click to expand...

Yep, the fridge is a very small consumer of power compared to other items in the house. I track power usage and consume about 15kW on weekdays and about 25kW on weekends (lots of electronic entertainment) on days without A/C. During the triple digit days (June to late August) my daily usage is from a low of about 55kW and as high as 80kW (day of the week doesn't have as much impact).

Long story short: A/C is over 40% of my annual power usage. Spending the money on insulation and more efficient cooling (which I just did two weeks ago) is always going to be your best bang for the buck.
 
Odnocer said:
Hmm... 8 track, cassette, VHS, DVD and so more costly new tech. :rolleyes: In the guise of saving energy, we are all using more to energy to power every new electronic device. It's new tech jacking up the cost of a new refrigerator, like the 7 dollar low watt mercury light bulb vs. the energy consuming incandescent $1.50 light bulb. And, by the way the new light bulb burns out just as often as the old incandescent light bulb, the difference is cost and that people is were they want us... CAPTIVE to keeping them in business. FOR if what I said was false... they (the manufacturers and engineers) would definitely GO OUT OF BUSINESS if they built quality items to outlast the last invented product. :cool:
Click to expand...

if the US pushed for Thorium based nuclear power this would be a non issue
 
jpm100 said:
Best as I can tell, this material in the presence of a magnet goes to a higher temperature without really adding heat to it. Because its at a higher temp, it can lose heat to the cooling fluid. When the magnet switches off, the material has less heat energy in it and drops to a colder temperature than when it started.

Material
Starts at Temp T1,
Switch on magnet,
Material jumps to T2 (T2>T1), without heat being added
Coolant drops material back to T1 by taking away heat.
Switch off magnet
Material drops to T3 (T3<T1<T2) and
material now can absorb heat from the fridge and goes back to T1.
Click to expand...

Sounds just like how a refrigerator works now. It compresses a gas, that heats it up, runs it through all the coils at the back of the fridge that allow it to cool off, then it is allowed to expand hence cooling.

Wonder how this compares to standard refrigerators, also whenever "special alloy" is mentioned that sounds expensive... and proprietary and patentable to the GE Mega-Corporation.
 
But it will "earn" a new specially created Super Energy Star rating and command a huge premium, much more than would ever be recovered by a typical grid power user. Success!
 
and 20% increase in efficiency is not bad for a new technology.
I'm hoping that it will be quiet.
 
Magnetic heat pump? Can someone get the paper on this?
 
Nifty but the concept of using magnetic fields for cooling isn't exactly new. Still interesting to see them making progress on real world examples that the average person could in theory use.
 
Kueller said:
What's the efficiency like compared to a traditional compressor style refrigeration unit? Fridges are one of the biggest consumers of energy in your home, often in temperate climates the single biggest consumer. Refrigeration via compression/phase change is very inefficient, and your fridge has to stay cool 24/7/365.
Click to expand...

Not unless you leave your refrigerator open all the time.
 
Mr. [H] editor, please don't spout nonsense.
GE 'discovered' nothing; the magnetocaloric effect has been known for decades.

I suppose it's good that they are working on a practical application, but that clunky demo is many years, even decades, from becoming a reliable, efficient home cooling/heating system.
 
I believe they want to use it in a refrigerator, not in the whole home.
 
Ws60 said:
Nifty but the concept of using magnetic fields for cooling isn't exactly new. Still interesting to see them making progress on real world examples that the average person could in theory use.
Click to expand...

GE doesn't claim it to be a new idea. The article even mentions it is not new. What is new is the alloy that allows it to operate at room temperature and the reduction in size.

This isn't meant to be an immediate replacement for your fridge. It's meant to lay the groundwork for cooling technology for the next 100 years. The last 100 has been spent making the same tech more efficient.
 
An air conditioner is a refrigerator with a lower temperature delta, and generally uses a split system.
 
pxc said:
1. Article states 20% more efficient than compressor based refrigerators.

2. It depends on your home. The average modern $500 16-18 cu ft major brand refrigerator/freezer uses about $5 in electricity a month, less than 5% of the average monthly electricity bill in the US. Incandescent lighting and AC use much more than that.

You can get a couple of fast food value meals a year with those kinds of savings!
Click to expand...

collegeboy69us said:
as cool as this is... if the 20% efficiency bump is only going to save me (at most) 20 dollars per year in electricity, it had better not cost more than 20 dollars over the normal price of fridges.
Click to expand...

Who knows, maybe this will trickle into home heating/cooling scenarios.
 
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